Chapter 26 Weapons of the proletariat

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The three bandits had finally finished dividing up the healer's possessions. There were few possessions, mostly clothes and small things like a comb, a couple of wooden bowls, and so on. In fact, the raiders' orders were somewhat different - lurk, wait, grab - and they had been paid in advance quite generously, but old habits prevailed, overpowering any instructions.

They would have done it sooner, but it took them a long time to believe that the damned girl had no stash or cleverly hidden boxes of valuables. Everyone knows that healers make a lot of money by sowing plague and other mischief, and they bathe the sick in milk and sell it to witches and confectioners. But, apparently, this particular healer was a beggar and most likely kept the money in another stash or even in a bank. However, who in their right mind would carry coins to a money house? Everyone knows that bankers steal good silver, and even more so, gold, and melt it down, casting abominable gods for the Two's shrines, and give back counterfeits, made so skillfully that you can't even tell the difference by a tooth. But nothing, the wench will come back, and then there will be time to ask her where the money is kept. The silver had to be divided among all the men, but this money would go to only three.

Since there was nothing left to catch, the three of them stomped down the rickety stairs, arguing softly and sluggishly, rather for the sake of propriety, to find out who had been deprived in the sharing of rags and sheaths. As the staircase was narrow, the raiders stretched out in a line, one after the other. The procession was closed by Noseless. He was more dissatisfied than the others, as befitted a man determined to take just and fair revenge but was deceived (even temporarily) in his aspirations. The criminal's mind was filled with dreams and visions of all that should be done with Lunna. Everything began in the same way, with a cut-off nose, first the very tip, then scissors to cut off the rest of the pieces, and then ... It must be said that Noseless (whose previous nickname had been long forgotten by Elena's efforts, and this the bandit could not forgive her separately) had by nature a vivid imagination so his fantasies were varied and seldom repeated.

So the "meat" hired by the witch descended one by one by the light of a few "rotten" lamps down the old staircase, accompanied by the creaking of the decaying boards. Elena, lurking on the second floor, let the trio pass by, then stepped out of the deep shadows, brought her hammer to bear, and with one blow, cracked Noseless' skull. The hapless avenger still had time to realize that the creak of the boards had changed, a different, alien note, as from foreign footsteps. Then, the whole life of a professional scoundrel, all memories and experiences ended in a bright flash of darkness when the six-sided hammer shattered the parietal bone.

It's still good to be a tall woman as tall as the average man, if not taller. It's easy to hit.

The force of the blow rocked the criminal to the side. He slumped against the wall like a jellyfish. His body relaxed, and he slid down to the landing. Elena, remembering the location of each step, silently jumped over the settling corpse and immediately went into a crouch, hooked the leg of the second opponent, shattering the knee. The raider flailed his arms incongruously and screamed, not so much from pain as from panic and the realization that something horrifying had happened. The nerves were still just transmitting the signal, and the neurons in his brain were processing it before giving the final "It hurts!" in that brief moment, the thug flailed his arms with a terrifying shriek, smashed through the railing with his whole body, and flew downward.

A scream, a crack of the railing and steps, a thump on the floor, another crack of boards from below, from the darkness, another scream. All this merged into a single sound that literally sawed the ear with strong teeth. The third crook had time to turn around, caught a glimpse of the dark figure, and with a sharp swing, threw at it a flail - a bone weight [1] on a thin and strong string. The criminal stood a couple of steps lower, and the weight came not in the head but on the abdomen, which Elena covered with a loose part of her cloak. The dense fabric weakened the poorly calculated blow but did not protect completely. A sudden jolt below the solar plexus almost knocked out the woman's breath and snapped her rhythm. But the bandit had already rushed forward and upward like an American soccer player, clutching a sharpened shard of mutton bone in his left hand [2].

Elena ducked down again, "piecing together" her clasped hands, cloak, hammer, and knife in front of her. She wanted to cover as many vulnerable areas as possible and catch the enemy on the blade at the same time. More precisely, Elena worked the science of Draftsman, controlling the body in addition to consciousness. Both opponents failed. The bone went sideways and got stuck in the cloak, which for the second time saved the mistress, and the knife slipped on the enemy's shoulder, bloody and generally not dangerous. In addition, the force of the blow knocked the hammer out of his hand, which flew down to the second raider, who continued to scream. From the fall, the criminal was even more crippled and unable to move at all.

The woman and the bandit got into a clinch. Elena's left hand with the cloak and knife was blocked, and her right hand was freer and, at the same time, unarmed. The criminal, sniffing and breathing sour onions, was twirling the bone needle, trying to stick it in properly. Instinct whispered to Elena in the grouchy voice of Draftsman that if she didn't come up with something original right now, it was the end. The woman pressed herself even harder against her opponent, wrapped her arms around him like a lover, and pushed off with her foot, dragging the two clutching bodies downward.

They tumbled, accompanied by the cracking of the wood and shouts from below. The house seemed to shriek in alarm, startled by the amazing, unprecedented events. Somewhere along the way, a fragile lamb bone snapped, and Elena dropped her knife, learning that even a safety cord doesn't help if your grip isn't strong enough. After counting a few steps, the tangle of clutched people changed its trajectory and tumbled sideways. Already at the bottom, it broke into two bodies groaning with pain, knocking over several empty pots and breaking Baby's old cradle.

"Kill the bastard!" shouted from the side, number two. "Finish him, for God's sake! Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, my leg! My back! My leg! My back! My legs won't move!!!"

Him? Elena thought machineily, getting up on all fours. They still don't get it.

It hurt all over. It seemed like she'd hurt every bone, every joint. Her arm, broken a year ago, was almost out of commission again. The corner of the step had nearly punctured her temple, but it was only an abrasion, which now bled. Warm trickles rolled down her cheek and ran to the corner of her mouth, leaving the taste of a well-licked doorknob. Something else was broken, and it didn't seem to be just her head that was bleeding. A bone point had pierced her stomach, luckily not deep, but none of that mattered. Hate electrified every cell of the battered, wounded body. Hate filled his lungs and heart with every breath. Hate dulled the pain better than any elixir. If only because it didn't cloud the mind with sleepy indifference.

Death loves me!

The bastard was already up, wobbly but ready to fight. He tried to throw his flail at the dark silhouette again, lost a moment or two pulling up the string. Elena knelt down and blindly searched around, her fingers grasping something short and angular, a piece of cribbing. It's light and short for a club, but at least it was something. She lunged forward, pushing off with her supporting leg.

The thug struck, clenching the bone weight in his fist, and hit, but weakly, the swing was not enough. Elena clenched her teeth to the crunch, feeling a new flash of pain. The next moment, a piece of wood in her hand stabbed right into the groin of her opponent. If he'd had normal pants, the tight leather, and flap would have protected him, lessening the blow. But the bandit was forcing on the southern custom, pulling on tight stockings, thin enough. A terrible, unspeakable flash of pain twisted him and threw him to the floor. Growling like a beast, Elena was on top of him and, clutching the same splinter in her curled fist stabbed the wood into his eye from top to bottom. Or rather, in the place where the eye might have been because the only source of light here was a dimly flickering lamp with a rotten stuffing of fish guts.

One thing was certain. The woman had hit something. The shriek turned into a high-pitched squeal, and the wood in her hand finally cracked and splintered. Elena rolled off her defeated opponent and fell beside him. It was good to lie down, very calm and almost painless. Only a man who has learned tedious work knows what a real rest is. Only a well-beaten fighter understands what happiness it is to lie there, with arms spread out, when muscles seem to moan from the pleasure of respite, lungs greedily gulp air, and pain no longer tears the body with red-hot cutters, but rather strokes it, encouragingly whispering "you're alive, you're still alive."

With a groan, the woman rolled over, got up on all fours again, and rested her shoulder against the wall. She pulled herself upright, little by little, clinging to the rough stone and brick with her broken fingernails. Pain and unbearable fatigue came like a heavy shroud, bending her back, urging her to fall down and not think about anything. Brether's instinct methodically, like a good accountant, inventoried the damage. Her knee crunched, something with the joint. If she, Elena, survived, she would have to eat a lot of jelly. The right arm is badly bruised, to say the least. On the left, near the trapezius muscle, a particular pain, where the second blow with the weight had come. And on the left side, a couple of ribs cracked. Her head was hurt, but her nose was intact, with a few bruises and skin on her temple.

The thug also rose, wheezing, trying to utter swear words reduced to hisses. In other circumstances, Elena would have given credit to the criminal's resilience. She could not fully appreciate the consequences of a blow to the groin, but she knew that it hurt. And the eye was hurt, even in the light of the lamp. And the man not only managed to get up but was preparing to continue.

The circumstances were not different, however, but as they were. And just next door, behind the wall, lay, tied to the table, the mutilated bodies of two little women who would never grow older. Even if Elena had tried very hard, she could hardly have found a single drop of mercy in her soul. But the healer didn't try.

Every movement was a flash of pain that lit up like fireworks, scorching the nerve endings. Sniffing noisily through her teeth, feeling the exhalation turn into a snarling groan, Elena swung her arm around, unraveling the cloak in a couple of frugal movements, just as Figueredo had taught her. She threw the cloth over her opponent just as Kai had once done during their 'duel' on sticks. The raider staggered back on shaky legs and swung his fist blindly with a clenched weight, bumping into the walls.

"There's my hammer," Elena whispered, giggling stupidly.

It was not easy to hammer the bandit. Because of the darkness, resistance, and fatigue, every second blow slipped or even missed. But the woman did it. Throughout the entire execution, Number Two shouted at the top of his voice, calling for help and promising all sorts of punishments, often in one sentence, in one exhalation.

"Well, that's it," Elena told the house and the darkness, finally putting down the hammer. Blood and grayish-brown sludge dripped from the hammer, slapping the floor in heavy, viscous drops. The woman took a deep breath, feeling the odor of the slaughterhouse fill her lungs. Everything seemed to be soaked through, even her underpants, leaving not a single dry thread. A bone flake pounded from the bandit's skull was stuck to her lip and would not come off.

"A weapon of the proletariat, for fuck's sake," she breathed out, spitting the profanity along with the fragment of someone else's head that had finally fallen off. The taste of iron in her mouth intensified.

I'm a murderer. I just killed three people, she thought and searched her soul for any feelings about it. Reflection, regret, or, on the contrary, happiness. No, nothing, just a general feeling everything was done right. As it should be.

Ah, no, the cries of the crashed man finally penetrated her consciousness, a reminder that this was not the case. Only two.

"You wait," she said, breathing hard, taking a breath after almost every word, to the bandit cowering in the shadows. "Don't go anywhere. I'll be right back."

The realization of what would be the best solution in this case came naturally, immediately in the form of a finished concept. It took some time to find the nails in the kitchen. It could have been quicker, but Elena felt like Kid and Baala were looking at her with silent disapproval, so she looked away, searching almost by feel. But she found it.

"You... what... you've got... bastard." The already not eloquent bandit number two was in a hurry to say as much and as convincingly as possible. He was scared and very, very hurt, so the words came out of his mouth mixed with spittle spat in an almost unintelligible shorthand.

"You'll find out," Elena promised, stepping closer and bringing the hammer down. "It won't get past you."

It took a lot of time and effort to nail the second raider to the floor, hammering nails into his wrists and forearms. The legs were immobilized as well. It seems the bandit really hurt his spine when he fell, so some of the nails were not useful. In the course of the operation, the woman broke the hammer and the hands, which the unlucky criminal fought back with, but she achieved her goal. Now Elena was most worried that someone might come and interfere with the procedure. The screams should have shaken the whole street, but either the old walls muffled the sound or, in the troubled capital, preferred not to interfere in other people's affairs.

"Well, that's it. It's done."

The bandit whimpered, thin and pitifully, breaking his voice.

"We need more light," Elena said. "More. The operating field must be properly illuminated!"

It took her a few more minutes to find five more or less good candle burns, to light one of them from a lump of coal in the stove, to stick them to the steps and railings, and to light them, too. But in the end, there was enough light to act with confident accuracy.

The bandit squelched, swearing and begging as the woman pulled off his torn pants and then, writhing at the smell, unwrapped the bandage, freeing his loins. The thug's voice trailed off into high, hysterical notes, and the force drained away like wine in a keg at a good table. Toward the end of the action, the bandit forgot all threats and begged, searching his memory for such convincing, beautiful words he would not have remembered on pain of death a quarter of an hour ago.

"As we say..." Elena pushed aside a strip of fabric with stale and fresh stains. She undid the buttons of her codpiece and pulled back the wide flap. The man lying there squealed in a very nasty and pathetic way, not understanding what this creepy woman in men's pants was going to do.

"... a well-tethered patient needs no remedy for pain," Elena said, pulling a small wooden sheath knife from her codpiece. It looked like a Japanese kogai or a scalpel.

"Yoo-hoo!!! Uhh!!!" The nailed man wailed, rolling his eyes and twitching. In those moments, he was ready to sacrifice anything, even pieces of his palms, just to get free. But the nails held firmly, reliably.

Finally, through the anguished howl came a more or less meaningful one:

"Don't! Please, please don't!"

"We must," Elena replied with the strictness of a teacher, trying on a knife. "We must, Fedya. But I don't have a whip, don't apologize. We'll make do with what we have on hand."

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"Please," the bandit whispered. His face was glistening with sweat, and tears of horror were rolling unceasingly. "I beg you, honorable lady, sweetest, most marvelous lady, don't...."

Elena looked into the eyes with madly dilated pupils, and the bandit gasped because the woman's gaze burned with an otherworldly, inhuman coldness. The paralyzed man clamped his eyes tightly shut, pleaded for the third time, and made a terrible oath to himself by his mother's grave that if the Lord passed by this repentance, Balkat, nicknamed "Cut Purse", would quit his life of crime, spend the rest of his days in prayer and begging for alms, arousing pity in people by his mutilations, as well as by penitential stories about his former unrighteous life. And all the money, of course, to give to the monastery.....

"They begged, too," Elena said softly. "I'm sure they asked you not to torture them. But that didn't stop you."

"I didn't do anything! I didn't do anything!" howled the criminal, who had become very eloquent and convincing. "I came afterward! I tried to stop everything!!!"

"I believe it," agreed Elena. - "I believe every word of it."

She tested the sharpness of the knife with her fingernail and was satisfied. Though the blade had not been used in a long time, the good steel had retained its sharpness. Instead of pleading and screaming, the nailed man whistled strangely and thinly, the spasm constricting his throat, and only the air sucked in through his teeth.

"I'm sorry," the woman said.

"Wh-what?" Badas's underling squeaked out in a falsetto of fierce hope. If a man apologizes, it means he feels some kind of guilt. And if he feels guilty, then maybe ...

"I don't have experience with this kind of operation," Elena said in an apologetic tone. "But I'll do my best. А! I have to tighten it at the base. It's bleeding, you know."

While Elena arranged his own "underpants" into an improvised rope and tied him up, Balkat was screaming so loudly that the walls seemed about to collapse. The mutilated bandit had forgotten from the horror that he had lost his voice and was screaming at the limits of the human throat. But when Elena made the first cut, he easily surpassed those very limits.

"I should break your jaw, too, so you don't yell," she reasoned aloud, still working. "But I won't. Scream, you bastard, scream louder."

The operation, one could say, was quite successful. Though the healer hadn't really performed such manipulations before, her steady hand and experience in practical surgery helped her to cope. There was a lot of blood, but not too much, so the bastard wouldn't die quickly. He seemed to have lost his mind in the process, though, so now he was chewing his tongue, dropping bloody foam, and rolling his eyes red from burst blood vessels.

Elena straightened, feeling the hot moisture on her hands. The sensation that had previously filled with disgust was now... neutral. Blood like blood. Red. Sticky. And piss is also an everyday thing.

"That's it," she whispered, trying again to find signs of some moral collapse, some sense of irreversibility, something in her soul. She found none. Only endless emptiness, pain throughout her body, and heavy fatigue.

There you are, a real fight to the death...

A road paved with other people's suffering.

Art that only takes blood as payment

Again she heard the disembodied laughter of Draftsman.

Well, there's been enough blood spilled today!

"Congratulations," said a soft, strong, and well-pitched voice behind her as if answering the woman's thoughts.

Elena turned, bringing her scalpel in readiness to repel the attack and attack immediately in one motion. She had time to wonder how the stranger had gotten so close and so stealthy, and then the light of a few candles revealed the face of a tall, shouldered man in a long cloak.

"Not to say I'm an expert on castrations.

The man bent down and picked up the knife Elena had dropped when she fell. In a practiced motion, he slipped the noose over his fingers and threw the weapon from the forward grip to the reverse grip and back to the forward grip again, testing the weapon with the careless dexterity of a master.

"But given the setting, I'm inclined to think this one was brilliantly executed."

"Ranjan," Elena's throat was dry, and she could feel the blood freezing on her hands. Her fingers, which had remained firm through the furious fight and the brutal operation, shook, almost letting go of the scalpel.

"Hel of the Wastelands," the Brether bowed his head politely. "We meet at last."

Elena straightened up, threw her head back, and shook it from side to side as if kneading her neck and shoulders. She gripped the scalpel more comfortably and securely. Not that the newly minted assassin was in any way particularly frightened. No, the woman was overcome by a different feeling. The Brether's figure was not one of terror but of inevitability. It was not fear but rather a sense of fatal doom. Like the setting of the sun and the coming darkness. Like the coming of an icy winter that withers the crops, so in the spring, everyone eats bread made of acorns, weeds, and reed roots. Like Death itself.

"You won't get me," her hands were shaking, and Elena had to hold the knife in both palms. "You didn't get me before... and you won't get me now."

Ranjan sighed heavily, with a distinct sadness, like a very tired man who had to fulfill a burdensome and necessary duty. Only now did Elena notice that in the deep shadows behind the Brether's shoulder was another figure, shorter but much broader in the shoulders. A handyman?

"Hel, you seemed pretty smart to me back in the north," Ranjan said patiently. "And you don't seem stupid now. At least, Draftsman spoke highly of you. Subject to his dislike of women, of course."

"Drafts... man?"

"Yes. And you must realize that if I meant to harm you, it's not in your power to stop me. But I don't intend to. Besides, you have good patrons."

"What?" Elena thought she must be having auditory hallucinations from her wounds and fatigue.

Ranjan sighed again, this time with ill-concealed impatience. The shadow behind his shoulder moved, too, silently, yet somehow imposing, solid.

"I came to you, but I didn't come for you. I need help."

Elena stepped back, nearly slipping in the bloody puddle, and gripped the knife tighter.

"Hel, we have very little time," the Brether said slowly and distinctly. "In fact, we don't have any time at all."

"What do you want?" The woman asked in a muffled voice.

"There's a job to be done before the bell strikes. I can't possibly do it without you."

"Hunting me again," Elena didn't so much ask as assert.

"No. That order was canceled long ago, as soon as you left the Wasteland. But when Figueredo told me you were working in prison, I knew fate was favoring me.... maybe. So I came as soon as I had the chance. Unfortunately," he looked around eloquently. "I was late."

"Draftsman," the woman's head was spinning. "Gave me away?"

"Mentioned," Ranjan pressed his lips together and wrinkled his nose like a man who has to do some nonsense instead of the important thing.

"I don't understand," Elena took another step back, figuring out the best way to twist to try and escape.

She wonder if it would be possible to slip through the undercroft fast enough. She doesn't think so.

"Okay, let's try it again," Ranjan grimaced even more. "First of all, you are safe. For now, anyway. Calm down."

"You're a killer. You were looking for me to kill me."

"No."

"I saw it," Elena said in a muffled voice. "And I heard. You were looking for me. And you killed those travelers on the road. You cut the girl's head off, you murderer. And you won't have me alive."

"Hel, we are wandering in circles of fruitless speeches," Brether was clearly losing patience. "I knew you were in Milvess, but I didn't look for you. I have other concerns. Charleigh asked only to know how your training with Draftsman was going, and I honored his request."

"Charleigh. asked you... told you about me..." Elena unclenched the fingers of her left hand and touched her hot forehead, feeling her brain boil, unable to comprehend what was happening.

"Yes. He can't get into the City because he left the capital too memorably. Damn it," Ranjan slammed the fist of one hand into the open palm of the other. "It's not easy. And there's no time. There's no time for a long explanation."

"Liar," Elena whispered. "Damn liar."

"I never lie. It's beneath my dignity," the Brether seemed to grow even taller. "And you have to help me."

"For what? Why...?"

"I'll pay you."

"Put your money..." Elena briefly, but quite exhaustively, pointed in the right direction. "Baby killer!"

A spasm passed across Brether's face, a quick-flying grimace of offended pride, but Ranjan held himself in check.

"If you don't want money, I'll pay you with knowledge. I'll tell you everything I know about your order."

"What?"

"I'll tell you when I was contacted and what the customer wanted. I will also share my reasonable assumptions."

"Who wants to kill me?!"

Ranjan waved his hands eloquently, showing, that a free excerpt has already been demonstrated.

"Hel, I have never transgressed the laws of my trade. I've never taken money from both sides or given out names. But there's too much at stake right now. For this, I'm willing to compromise my honor. For your help, I will break a word I've never broken in my life. But there's no time. Make up your mind."

"What if I don't?"

Her arms were tired, and her strength to hold even a light knife was almost gone, but Elena tried hard, unable to believe what she was hearing.

"Then I'll leave. And you won't know anything."

"You're lying," the woman exhaled.

"You're insulting me again," Ranjan shook his head, his long dark hair swinging slightly to the sides of his expressionless, chiseled face. "I don't want to hurt you. Nor can I. You have good intercessors. But I think you have enough enemies," Brether looked at the castrated bandit, who was whimpering uncontrollably and very quietly. "All I can do is ask for help and pay you back with something you won't find anywhere else. Well, I'll get you out of Milvess if we can make it work. It's going to get very hot in the city soon. It's up to you."

It was impossible, unreal, surreal ... and yet it seemed that one of the two most frightening people in Ecumene was telling the truth. The healer was soberly assessing her options, and if Ranjan wanted to kill her, she would be dead by now. Yet the Brether seemed quite peaceful, did not do anything threatening, and talked about some patrons. Instead of a ruthless and unstoppable killer, Elena saw a man whose thoughts were occupied with completely different concerns. Ranjan was either playing a talented game, or he was only interested in the Wasteland refugee insofar as she could help him in an unknown case.

Or did play?

"Flessa's protecting me?"

"I don't know who that is. And..." Ranjan looked at her eloquently, glancing critically from heel to head. "You should, at least, wash your face and hands and change your clothes. Law has no place on the streets of Milvess today, but you'll attract too much attention."

Ranjan bowed his head, his cheek twitching. His face expressed doubt and anxiety, and several mutually exclusive desires seemed to clash in the Brether's soul. He moved as if he wanted to address the silent figure behind but held back.

"Honorable Lunna," the shadow stepped to the side and forward, and the burning candles illuminated a short and remarkably shouldered man with a simple, even plain face dressed in some sort of robe that looked like a monk's robe. "This man will not harm you. You are free to accept his offer or reject it. We will help you either way."

Elena lowered the scalpel.

"I don't understand anything," she complained. "I know nothing. Who are you all? What do you mean, we?"

"I am Brother Cadfal. I am the Redeemer."

Cadfal emphasized the word "Redeemer" distinctly in his voice as if it had a definite and special meaning, obvious to all present.

"We'll answer the rest of the questions later. Man of Battle," a slight nod toward the Brether. "Said right, you should wash up, change your clothes. And you should leave. This house is getting too dangerous."

"They should be..." Elena looked around. "They need to be buried. No, not those," she looked around, pointing at the corpse and the bandit nailed to the floor. "The others..."

"I see," nodded the "redeemer" very seriously. "The bodies should be washed, dressed, mourned, and given a proper burial in earth or fire. Yes. But, unfortunately, we can't do that."

"It's necessary!" Elena raised her voice.

"Respect for the dead is a virtue. But it is said that the dead should not destroy the living. God seems to be on your side. He allows you to miss the bad people, but the Lord's mercy has limits. And we will pay for the departed in due time and pray for their posthumous fate."

He stepped again. Now Elena could see that Brother Cadfal held in his hand something between a short staff and a club. A rhizome, polished almost to a shine by many years, thousands of touches. The thick edge recall a bad association because it looked exactly like the sticks used for wheeling, with the same characteristic marks of repeated blows to the bones.

The Redeemer raised the club and, in a movement that seemed careless, almost lazy, cracked the skull of the nailed man. It was precise and accurate, like a man who had done it many times before and dosed the force strictly according to necessity.

"To punish the wretch is a godly thing, and suffering cleanses from sin," said the brother. "But the mind has left this body, and there is no redemption in unconscious torment."

Elena swallowed. Сadfal reeked of unbreakable calm, of confidence in his rightness. And also the strength of a born fighter. Elena thought for a few moments, wiped the knife on her sleeve, and tucked it into its wooden scabbard.

"So, who are you?" she asked.

"Redeemer," Cadfal repeated. He seemed a little surprised that the word didn't seem to mean anything to her.

"There's no time!" reminded Ranjan.

"There is," the brother said stubbornly. "It's not much, though, it's true."

Elena silently shifted her gaze from Cadfal to Brether and back again, unable to believe there was a man capable of telling Plague what to do. And what's more, Ranjan listened to him, albeit with gritted teeth.

Have I gained some patrons?

"Hel," Ranjan held back this time. "If you don't help me, you're of no use to me. And there will be no payment."

"Now..." Elena wiped her face with her hands, smearing the drying blood. "Wait... I don't understand, I don't understand anything."

"Wash up. Change your clothes," Cadfal summarized instead of the boiling Ranjan. "Get away from these streets. We'll take it as it comes, depending on the circumstances."

"Clothes..." Elena looked around. "I think they stole it... We should look... Find it... And water."

"We will wait," Brother Cadfal said with the same calmness. "Don't forget the medicine box."

Outside, in the garden, a small and silent group waited for them. A dusky fighter with a two-handed "tournament" sword, obviously Ranjan's servant and squire. Two more fighters, clearly mercenaries, but of a class far above that one who had challenged Elena to a fight, which was evident in everything from the fine armor, more appropriate for nobles.

The woman looked back at the dusky, dark house. This was where she had lived for over a year. Here, she had felt safe, finding peace, shelter, and rest. And now the mansion was a tomb where eight people had been laid to rest in one day, just one day, and all of them had died very badly, though in different ways.

"You can't just leave them. You can't."

"Then let's burn the house down," Сadfal suggested with everyday practicality.

"It will attract attention," the brether's servant pointed out.

"There'll be a lot of fires in Milvesse tonight," Ranjan summarized impatiently. "One house doesn't mean anything."

Brether gave a short order and opened the small gate leading outside. One of the mercenaries nodded silently and walked toward the house, fumbling in his belt pouch for a pipe and firebrand. Beyond the fence waited for several equally stern and silent men, a dead man and a second "redeemer." If Cadfal was stocky and broad, this one looked more like a Japanese grandfather from some samurai movie. Short, skinny, and very, very old. His face was like a clay statue, with numerous and deep wrinkles. However, the image was contradicted by a spear slightly taller than a man, with a short shaft and a disproportionately large tip in the form of an isosceles triangle. And the corpse at the feet of the "Japanese grandfather." Judging by the gruesome wound and the bloody trace on the spear, it was a puny spear-wielder who had killed the thug in a single blow.

"There was a company, five or six of them, local patrons," one of the mercenaries reported briefly to Brether. "They wanted to break into the house. They were upset and left."

"I see," Ranjan nodded.

"My name is Rapist," the spear-wielding "grandfather" briefly introduced himself to Elena. He had a voice to match his appearance, soft and decrepit.

"What?"

"I am Rapist," the spearman repeated without changing his face. After a short pause, he felt it necessary to clarify. "I have done many wrongs in the old days, but the main one was violence against women. Now, I am atoning for that sin. I am now atoning for that sin, including the contempt of men."

"You called yourself a "Rapist" to be despised?"

"Yes."

Judging by the faces of the mercenaries listening to this surreal dialog, they felt rather bewildered with a certain amount of apprehension.

"I see," said Elena, who didn't understand anything.

Smoke wafted from the garden. The mercenary who had left to set the fire returned, carefully shutting the gate. Elena adjusted the leather straps of the "Vietnamese footlocker" and looked around, feeling many prickly eyes hidden in the shadows behind shutters and old boards of fences. She put her hand to the cold wall of the fence, made of many flat stones on strong mortar.

She thought she was going to cry, that grief would come in waves, as it had then, on the shore, near the stone pyramid cenotaph. There was grief, yes. Heart-wrenching pain and burning guilt. The realization that, though unwillingly, it was most likely the woman from Earth who had brought about the deaths of Baala and her daughter. And there were no tears. As Charleigh-Vensant said at the time... Tears are the province of the young. And Elena felt very, very old.

"Drink," Ranjan handed her a small bottle of the usual kind of cloudy glass with a wooden stopper.

"What that?"

"An elixir. It will restore and increase your strength until morning."

"I don't need it."

"You need," said the Brether adamantly. "We have a sleepless night and serious worries ahead of us. And you're already exhausted."

"I haven't agreed to anything yet," Elena looked at the bottle through the peephole. The sun was already setting, and in the dying light, the liquid glowed faintly and looked very suspicious.

"You'll agree," the Brether suggested. "You want to know the truth. I can reveal part of it, the part I know."

It smelled like smoke.

"Come," Cadfal said, and Helena let herself be pulled away in a tired daze.

They came down to the river in a tightly packed group, with the "brothers" standing on either side of them, shielding them from any possible threat. Elena looked back one last time just as the first flames rose from the fence.

There was enough wood in the house and a good supply of oil shale. The woman didn't know how much fuel was needed to burn the bodies to ashes, but she hoped there was enough. This morning, she was almost happy. A few hours had passed, and now Elena was surrounded by death, pain, and chaos. The man who had only miraculously not killed her a year ago was pacing duskily beside her. What does the night hold in store? And what kind of world will she find herself in by dawn? How many more people will die, how many things will be irreversibly changed?

"Tell me," she demanded softly. "Everything, from the beginning."

"We can't stay here too long," said the Brether. "We will cross to the other side, and I will tell you everything there."

* * *